Sons of Anarchy: "Brick" Review

The lies are starting to pile up.

Sons of Anarchy has only aired five episodes and already the tangle of lies surrounding each character has gotten pretty thick. Clay, Gemma and Unser dealt with problems caused by the past, while Juice kicked up a whole new set of troubles for himself by agreeing to work with Roosevelt. Bobby lied to Otto, Potter lied to Roosevelt, and Opie found out that Lyla was hiding things from him. All in all, it was not a good week for truth in the town of Charming.

Starting the episode on several ominous notes, the anxiety only built throughout the hour. It would be hard to say whether Clay, Gemma and Unser worrying about John Teller's letters was the tenser situation, or if it was the mess poor Juice got himself into by working with Roosevelt. Even a seemingly harmless scene like Jax greeting Tara and the kids took on an edge of worry after Jax proudly showed off his piles of money to Tara, and she was left holding the cash and thinking about where it came from.

Piney kicked things off in style when he threatened to expose the contents of John Teller's letters if Clay did not extract the club from dealing with the cartel. Tara only confided in Piney at the end of last week, and I had expected that we would have at least a couple more episodes of various people sneaking around, gathering information. But Piney was not interested in wasting time, which was great.

It was a big moment on Sons of Anarchy for Clay to talk openly about murdering John Teller. It has seemed obvious from the beginning – as soon as the parallels to Hamlet surfaced, it was assumed that Clay and Gemma conspired in JT's death – but this was the first open admission that I can recall. (I'm sure you will let me know in the comments if I am wrong about that.) The similarities between Hamlet's King Claudius and Clay were never more obvious than in "Brick." Like Claudius, when Clay worried over being exposed for his part in the murder of Jax's father, his thoughts went directly to solving the problem with more murder. Also comparable to Claudius was the fact that while Clay may admit to the murder, if there was any regret at all it was because of the impending repurcussions, not that he felt remorse for the act itself.

While the situation was deadly serious, it was amusing to watch Unser roll his eyes over being pulled back and forth between Clay and Gemma. Ron Perlman, Katie Segal and Dayton Callie have always been great at bringing a sense of history to their interactions. I also loved that after Gemma searched for several episodes, Unser found Tara's copies of the letters in about five minutes.

It was much easier to feel sympathy for Juice's plight than for what Clay was going through. Juice was being used by Potter and Roosevelt, who correctly judged that Juice would find more risk in telling SAMCRO that his father was black, than in taking a sample of the cocaine to Roosevelt. Juice has often been one of the more light-hearted members of SAMCRO, but this season Theo Rossi has amped up his vulnerability. It was agonizing to watch his horror when he realized he had missed his chance to put the stolen cocaine back before anyone noticed. With the episode ending on everyone discovering the missing drugs, there is potential for this situation to really blow up.

Guest starring in "Brick" were both Tom Arnold and David Hasselhoff. Arnold we have seen before, and while it was a little distracting to have The Hoff show up, at least he was playing a cheeseball porn producer and not a tough biker. The casting made sense in a weird sort of way, but even so, it was a lot to ask of one episode to handle both actors at the same time.